Today is suicide prevention day which is a good way to raise awareness because there is a silence to suicide.

People that feel suicidal or deeply depressed often stay silent about how they are feeling

Each year, over 800,000 people die by suicide and up to 25 times as many make a suicide attempt. Every single one of the people in these statistics have felt that life is no longer worth living. But many of these people won’t have told anyone how they are feeling. Most people will have family, friends, work colleagues and neighbours but when they spoke to these people they didn’t tell them how unbearable they were finding their lives.

I wonder why it is that people suffering emotionally so deeply feel they can’t share their feelings with anyone. There may be a number of reasons:

They may be embarrassed to tell someone

They may feel guilty for feeling this way

They might not want to burden someone else with their problems

They might think how they are feeling will go away on its own

Could you save a life?

The theme of the 2017 World Suicide Prevention Day is ‘Take a minute, change a life.’ This means noticing is someone around you is struggling and checking in with them. You don’t have to have all the answers for them, just let them know you are there and you care. Offering a gentle word of support and listening in a non-judgemental way can make all the difference.

There is no need for silence about suicide. The more open we are in society and communities about it, the more help it will be. .

People who have lived through a suicide attempt have much to teach us about how the words and actions of others are important. They often talk movingly about reaching the point where they could see no alternative but to take their own life, and about the days, hours and minutes leading up to this. They often describe realising that they did not want to die but instead wanted someone to intervene and stop them. Many say that they actively sought someone who would sense their despair and ask them whether they were okay.

Can you imagine saving someone’s life. Just by asking if they are ok? I mean REALLY ok?

You don’t need to be an expert of any kind to help someone. You just need to listen. Often that first opening up to someone is therapeutic to the person feeling suicidal will seek help or be open to seeking help after they have opened up. Its like they are a pressure cooker and they’ve let a bit of the steam out.

The smallest bit of compassion and empathy can be all someone delicate needs to feel that life is worth living.

Suicide affects more than just one life

Obviously it is extremely sad that anyone commits suicide but the pain they leave for those around them can live on forever. A suicide is shocking for all involved. Even if you don’t know someone very well, it can still be shocking and painful.

People left behind often spend years with very raw and painful emotions.

What makes people feel suicidal?

It is often an event like divorce or redundancy that can really bring someone down. Or stress or depression just becomes unbearable. It is so important to look after your mental health and seek support if you feel you need it. Seeking help can make a tremendous difference to how you feel.

The stats around suicide

Suicide is the 15th leading cause of death globally, account for 1.4% of all deaths and

The global suicide rate is 11.4 per 100 000 population

More males 15 in 100,000 are affected than females 8 in 100,000

Suicide is the leading cause of death in people aged 15-24 in many European countries

Depression is the most common psychiatric disorder in people who die by suicide

50% of individuals in high income countries who die by suicide have major depressive disorder at their time of death

For every 1 suicide 25 people make a suicide attempt

60 people are affected by each suicide death. This equates to 48 million people bereaved by suicide worldwide every year

This World Suicide Prevention Day and everyday take a minute to reach out to someone – this can change a life

You might choose to Light a Candle near a Window at 8 PM to support World Suicide Prevention Day 2017 to show your support for suicide prevention, to remember a lost loved one, and for the survivors of suicide.

The Samaritans are an excellent source of support if you need to talk to someone. Their number is 116 123. You do not need to suffer in silence.

Finally, if there is anyone you are concerned about, take a minute to check in with them. It could change their life.

How I got my limiting belief about parking tickets

A few years ago someone told me that if you don’t fit your whole car in a car park space (including the tow bar) that a traffic warden could give you a parking ticket. So for years I have sought big enough parking spaces to make sure I could fit my whole car in them. It only occurred to me today that I had lived by this ‘rule’ without even checking if it’s true!

The point of telling you this is that quite often we make ‘rules’ for ourselves which we then then strictly live by. And most of the time they are complete nonsense but stop us doing so many things that we could or would do. These ‘limiting beliefs’ can seriously alter the course of your life, stop you taking opportunities and stop you fulfilling your potential.

Can you imagine how much time and petrol I have spent finding spaces when I could have parked in the first one I saw. Limiting beliefs do this. They stop us getting things we want or need. They ‘block’ us.

Limiting beliefs are those which constrain us in some way. Just by believing them, we make them true for ourselves.

Here are some common limiting beliefs that you may have

Confidence

The first limiting belief that stops you being confident is ‘I’m not confident’. So I ask you? Were you a confident child? Are you not confident in all situations? If you are not confident in social situations but you are confident in your profession or parenting, then maybe it is not true that you are ‘not confident’. Once you overcome your limiting beliefs about not being confident you will be amazed how much confidence you have!

Weight loss

Two common limiting beliefs I hear people say when they come for Hypnotherapy for weight loss are ‘I have a big appetite’ and ‘I can’t lose weight’. Well if you believe these things your body will believe them too. Especially as your brain and stomach are in constant communication (with the stomach being called the second brain). So all the time you believe these beliefs you are unlikely to lose the weight you want to lose. Your brain also likes negativity! So you need to ditch negative limiting beliefs to achieve your weight loss goals.

Depression

Of course depression feels very real and it would be hard to think that you have beliefs around depression. But as this is a subject I specialise in as a therapist, I can say with confidence that you may have beliefs along the lines of ‘I can’t enjoy my life’ or ‘I will never be happy’ or ‘I’m not lucky in life’. These are beliefs that will keep you stuck and they are not always easy to overcome on your own.

Anxiety

When you are put in a situation that clashes with your limiting belief this may make you feel anxious. Imagine your limiting belief is that you can’t talk in front of a group and then you are given a presentation to do at work. This causes a lot of people a lot of anxiety to the extent that many people even have panic attacks. Imagine swapping the belief that you can’t talk in front of people to ‘I can talk about anything to anyone’ What would that be like?

Motivation

If you believe that you can’t be motivated, that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You may let opportunities pass you by, believing you will lack the motivation to do them. You may see other people moving on, doing things you wanted to do. And the truth is they are no different to you but they just don’t hold the same belief around motivation.

Love

If you have lived then you’ve probably loved and maybe been hurt. Quite often this will give you limiting beliefs like ‘I will get hurt’ or ‘no one will love me like I want to be loved’. These are ingrained by your experiences and the pain you felt. With a bit of work on yourself you can overcome these thoughts and feelings.

Money

The limiting beliefs around money are vast! You may have inherited some like ‘it’s wrong to waste money’ or ‘you have to work really hard to make money’ or even some that make you feel guilty about having money. These will hold you back in your career or your business. You need to believe that making money is ok, that you deserve money and that you don’t need to feel guilty about having it or spending it.

Relaxation

Half the job of relaxation is believing that you can! I hear this a lot in my Hypnotherapy practice, people say ‘I can’t relax’ or ‘I can’t meditate’ and so we do some work and then they are soon deeply relaxed. And once that has happened, that belief is soon out the window! My top tip for anything is believe you can and you are halfway there.

Finding your limiting beliefs

Identifying your limiting beliefs can be a big piece of work and NLP can be very useful for identifying them and overcoming them. You can read about NLP here. Basically, we all create our own ‘map of the world’. Our map is what we believe is the way it is, how it should be and how people are and should be. This ‘map’ is created by our own experiences and beliefs we absorb and inherit from others.

If you want to start looking for them then look out for things you think or say that begin with:

I can’t

I must/mustn’t

I am/am not

We can unknowingly hide behind our limiting beliefs and subconsciously use them as excuses not to push ourselves into uncomfortable situations (which is where we grow the most). We can also use them to protect ourselves from fearful situations. i.e. if your belief is that you don’t ‘fit in’ you will most likely avoid situations where you socialise and therefore avoid your fear of ‘not fitting in’.

Some of the most common limiting beliefs are below. Can you identify with any?

I’m too old, too young, too fat, too out of shape, etc.

I’m not clever enough

I’m not outgoing

I can’t do that.

I don’t have confidence

I don’t have enough skills or talent

I am not motivated

I’m terrible at managing my time, money, etc.

I make too many mistakes

Successful people have more drive than me

I’m a failure

I’m a slow learner

I don’t fit in

I’m unloveable

I procrastinate too much

I don’t have time

I’m too old to try that

I have too many responsibilities

And of course, the big one that can make or break a life is ‘I’m not good enough’. I just want to tell you now that YOU ARE.

I can help you break through your limiting beliefs and living the life you really want

If you want to explore your limiting beliefs or indeed yourself, please do drop me a text or email and let’s have a chat about introducing you to you 🙂

Sign up for the free 21 Day Wellbeing Challenge

I’ve seen enough ‘frazzled’ clients to understand that prevention is always better than cure when it comes to mental health.

You might want to sign up for my free 21 Day Wellbeing Challenge which is an easy to follow plan for busy people. Just sign up here

Your mental health – How much do you honestly think your employer cares about it?

Do you feel that they care more about business results than the mental health of the people they manage?

I was motivated to think about this question and write this post as a result of another blog post I saw. A woman that sent an email to her boss to say she needed to take a mental health sick day got a really cool response. You can read about it here

What do you think your boss would say if you sent an email saying you were having a mental health sick day? Would they respond kindly or would they respond asking for an update on your work! In many cases bosses lack empathy towards employees.

Is mental health in your workplace taken as seriously as physical health?

It might be slightly different of course with an obvious physical illness. You know the sort of thing, leg in cast, swollen eye, streaming cold or sporting injury. Or even an operation where you are actually in hospital and completely unable to work ,so the boss can be satisfied you are no good to them whatsoever for a while.

Most people have sympathy towards physical illness don’t they? ‘Awwww, that looks sore’ or ‘you poor thing, hope you are feeling better soon’. But is there the same level of sympathy towards mental health or is there still a bit of a stigma? Many people are not keen to openly talk about depression although mixed anxiety & depression is the most common mental disorder in Britain, with 7.8% of people meeting criteria for diagnosis and 4-10% of people in England experiencing depression in their lifetime.

Is there still a mental health stigma?

Why is there any stigma or lack of support for mental health issues in the workplace? Luckily, high profile people like Price Harry are really helping matters by talking about it. He has openly said how the death of his mother, Princess Diana affected his mental health and wellbeing.

You might not think there is a stigma as you may be lucky to be in a workplace that is supportive of mental health issues like Laing O’Rourke. But there clearly is a huge problem 49% of people saying they would be unlikely to tell their boss about problems such as anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder. Only 35% said they’d be happy to tell colleagues.

They say people leave companies because of bad bosses….

Some workplaces are almost archaic in their support of mental health issues. Managers that are so wrapped up in their own careers and living and breathing ‘work’ that they forget the people that work for them are PEOPLE. It makes a real difference when your manager bothers to get to know you as a person. Asks after your family, makes you feel like a human.

And when you have a mental health issue and you manager is supportive, wow! That can really make or break your happiness at work. Maybe they support you be making changes to your hours, or your workload or support appointments for you to get professional help.

Or maybe they simply respect that not every day you are able to put in your most amazing performance or effort. It doesn’t make you a less committed or able employee. Businesses are obsessed with number of hours worked when actually you can be just as efficient and if not more in less hours if you are happy and supported.

It’s time for employers to wake up and smell the bachs remedy

It is so shortsighted for employers not to consider the mental health of it’s employees part of its strategy and company ethos.

In business speak, the costs of not doing so are massive with mixed anxiety and depression estimated to cause one fifth of days lost from work in Britain.

Things that don’t help mental health at work are:

Unsupportive company ethos

Bullying

Systems and processes that cause stress

Regular overworking

Lack of ‘Wellbeing at work’ initiatives

Lack of support from managers and HR

Lack of appropriate training

Unrealistic targets and timescales

The things on this list cause stress and anxiety in abundance. Both of which can lead to depression and absence from work.

Some companies are wellbeing aware

Luckily 500 smart companies have signed up for the Time to Change Pledge to challenge mental health stigma and discrimination across England.

In a really great guide from Mentalhealth.org.uk they explain that good mental health practices have to start with managers. They advise looking out for these things in employees:

Irritable

Sensitive to criticism

Loss of confidence or humour

Making more mistakes

Indecisive

Lack of concentration

Not taking breaks

Becoming introverted or extroverted

Displaying stress

Looking tired

Lack of motivation

Prevention will pay dividends

There is also a great deal that can be done at prevention level which starts with having an open approach to mental health. Talking about it in the company and being supportive of people working their contracted hours and not regularly expecting more. Have realistic job descriptions and treat people like people.

Of course people want to do a good job and be successful, it’s good for self-esteem and motivation. But they also want lives and energy to enjoy themselves!

Some companies cottoned onto the benefits of having a workforce who nurture their mental health a while ago. Some of the best are mentioned here

If you know a company that are good at caring about the mental health of their employees, please give them a shout out in the comments of this blog. They deserve it 🙂

There is a very simple sum too which sums up why employers should care about mental health.

Happy staff = staff that want to make customers happy = happy business = attracts high quality employees that want to work there = happy business etc

In short, caring about your brain is a no brainer 🙂

A quick word for the self employed

As you are your own boss, you are responsible for your own mental health. Self employed people can be so enthusiastic about their businesses that they let their self-care slip. Don’t let this be you! If you are in business you will know that you need to play both the short game and the long game and this applies to your physical and mental health too.

Schedule days off and holidays. Make sure your customers and clients know your working hours so your ‘free time’ does not become ‘work time’.

So many people leave Corporate life to enjoy the benefits of being self employed and actually ending working harder and longer. Nothing wrong with passion for your business, but if you burn out you won’t be able to do very much at all.

You have personal responsilbity for your own mental health too

Of course, work is not the only cause of mental health issues. Problems can arise after a life changing event, illness or for no reason at all unfortunately. There is loads you can do to take care of your own wellbeing and keep mental health issues at bay. Then you can enjoy your work and the rest of your life to the best of your ability.

Sign up for the free 21 Day Wellbeing Challenge

I’ve seen enough ‘frazzled’ clients to understand that prevention is always better than cure when it comes to mental health.

You might want to sign up for my free 21 Day Wellbeing Challenge which is an easy to follow plan for busy people. Just sign up via the pop up here on my website.

The impact of judging others on your self-esteem

I will need to exercise some self-control in writing this blog, or we could end up with a very long blog! I learnt a long time ago to be less judgemental because working with people I know that not everything is as it seems.

A large part of my work is helping people become more confident, increase their self-esteem and cover what I call ‘work of the self’. This is helping people to understand themselves better through uncovering their values and finding their identity so they can be ‘comfortable in their own skin’. The benefits of this are that they can be more confident in and live their life in a way that feels good for them.

It’s much easier to make the right decisions when you know yourself and the world can see the real you. Everything changes.

What happens when we judge others?

So back to judging others… When we judge others it does two things.

1 – It holds that person up against our own values and beliefs. It has nothing to do with who they are! I’m going to give you some scenarios and I want you to just see what enters your head as I say these things.

2 – It puts bad thoughts in your mind which will make you feel bad

Think about how you might judge these people

A married couple that live apart

Someone that loves to socialise to the point where they spend all their money on it

Someone that is very prudent and rarely ‘splashes out’

Someone that works a lot and is often away from home

Some that does not work

Someone that wears revealing clothes

The thing is you don’t know anything about these people. They might be pure of heart or not, you don’t know. They might be generous or kind, you don’t know. They might be gentle, rich, poor, stressed, depressed, worried…..

Don’t hate the rice!

Judging others does is puts thoughts in your mind which damage your self-esteem. I don’t know if you have ever seen the Rice Consciousness experiment, inspired by Dr Masaru Emoto but it’s fascinating.

By labelling one jar ‘hate’ and the other ‘love’, the rice in the hate jar rots away while the rice in the love jar stays fresh. And this isn’t the only time this has been done. It has been done numerous times with different substances.

So if you think bad thoughts, you will probably feel bad inside (even though you might not consciously connect this). If you think good thoughts, you will feel better. Simples.

And when you judge others less, you will feel less judged yourself. Because if you haven’t having those thoughts about other people why would they be having them about you?

Find the gold

Here are my top tips for not judging others:

Listen to what other people say. Don’t judge them on their clothes, hair, car job. Listen and see them for who they are

Be open minded about new people. They might not look like your ‘type’ of person but they might be the best thing since sliced bread

Don’t go on first impressions. I know they are said to be important but they are just a snapshot of someone at one particular time. Everyone is multi faceted and different situations make people behave differently. If someone is suffering from anxiety or depression, you won’t see the best of them at that time.

Don’t let someone else’s opinion of someone get in the way of you forming your own

Look for things you like about someone rather than something you don’t

Find the gold in someone. What makes their eyes light up? A loved one, a hobbie, holidays? Whatever it is, when you see them talk about it watch them shine and see the best of them

Check your words before they come out of your mouth.Just like you would check an email before sending it. Try and be kind.

Here’s the plan:

Be less judgemental and see if it makes a difference to how you feel and your map of the world

Do you need help?

If you feel judged yourself, that is an indication of low confidence and self-esteem so please get in touch for a free consultation to see how I can help you.

The highest rising demand for my services is with teenage girls. I’m finding they really worry about being judged in terms of are they cool enough, pretty enough, thin enough. Social media like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest really feeds these insecurities and affects their self-esteem. I work with them to help them like themselves and become more resilient.

Comparison has a place…

Compare the meerkat, oops I mean market, is a great site isn’t it. It gives you confidence in your decision by letting you compare insurance policies based on all their different benefits and features. It’s useful to compare insurance in this way because at the end of the day, you want value for money and the policy that is right for you. There are comparison sites for lots of other things too; Broadband, TVs, cars, holidays, computers. But can you imagine if there was one for people!

It might look something like this:

Linda

Saskia

Maria

Nice hair

y

n

n

Funny

y

n

y

Slim

n

y

n

Popular

y

y

n

Kind

n

y

y

Generous

y

n

n

Confident

y

n

y

Clever

y

n

n

Wealthy

y

n

y

Attractive

n

y

n

Successful

y

y

n

Thoughtful

n

y

y

Warm

y

n

n

Good friend

y

n

y

Fun

y

n

n

Brave

y

n

y

Adventurous

n

y

n

Creative

y

y

n

Collaborative

n

y

y

Honest

y

n

n

Reliable

y

n

y

How would it feel to see yourself judged in this way? Or see those you care about judged in this way? What effect might it have? Well it might upset you to see that you weren’t a ‘yes’ for things you wanted to be a ‘yes’ for. And those ‘no’s’ would become your focus, never mind all the fantastic yes’s you had. This may really affect your confidence.

This is because we are sensitive souls and the mind has a negative bias so it finds it easier to focus on anything negative. Yes, positive thinking takes work. But the good news is that when you do it often it becomes more automatic, but more on that later.

You might then look at the list if you are Saskia and despite the fact that you have been ‘judged’ as being popular, kind and creative you might be jealous that Linda is considered confident and clever. This might make you, Saskia, feel like you are not as good as Linda.

You find it easy to overlook all that is good about you and everything that your friends and family love about you because you are comparing yourself to Linda.

So how might this comparing yourself to others make you feel? You might feel:

Inferior

That you lack confidence

Unsure of your best qualities

Intimidated by Linda

And as a result you might not shine as yourself, feel lost or retreat and feel unhappy.

We are often least kind to ourselves

Now the funny thing is, we are more brutal with comparing ourselves to others than comparing those we love to others. When we have our love goggles on, we tend to recognise the positive qualities of those we love more easily than our own.

I bet if I said to you now tell me 5 things you really like about someone you love, you could do it in seconds ,but how easily can you do it for yourself? Go on, grab a pen and do it now! Let me know how you get on (I am genuinley interested).

The more we focus on the good, the less the bad matters….

So back to compare the market.com. When we are comparing our insurance, there will be some things that are more important than others. Maybe you can’t live without a courtesy car, or the thought of a large excess fills you will dread, so it’s good to understand what all these things are.

You might make a call to have a chat about some of the policy features and decide that yes that is important to you. You know that when you know your policy priorities you can feel really happy and you have confidence that you have made the right choice

Well people are similar in that we all have inner values which are most important to us. Many people haven’t a clue what theirs are! This is a big piece of the work I do when I see clients in my Hypnotherapy practice in West Sussex and worldwide on Skype.

Many of my clients are what I call ‘out of sorts’. They’ve lost their way and don’t feel like they know themselves and they need some ‘realignment’. We do values work so that they can identify parts of their life which may be conflicting with these values. When you truly understand your values and know yourself better you will just feel ‘more you’. Your decisions and behaviours will be easier to align to your true self and life will be better.

There’s another benefit to knowing yourself. As well as knowing your strengths, it is good to be aware of your shadows. Those quirks and qualities that give you your unique edge and your vulnerability. When you know yourself you will live your life with much more confidence.

Tiger focuses on golf

An example I always use here is education. We expect students to do well in all the subjects and some do. But if you are really amazing at Maths but not English, are you better to focus your energy on the maths or English? Which will make you feel better? Which will you excel at?

I’m not saying that education isn’t important, but can you imagine if they had said to Tiger Woods, ‘yeah, you are really good at golf, but you should be better at tennis so why don’t you spend your time playing tennis!’.

He did what he was good at and had passion for and he excelled. Does he or anyone else care that he isn’t good at tennis? I doubt it!

We are not meerkats (or car insurance)

So continue to compare the market by all means, get the courtesy car and free windscreen repair for a bargain price and wait for your meerkat to arrive in the post, but don’t compare yourself to others. There really is no need. You have good stuff and not so good stuff about your personal qualities and how you look, but unless you are planning on having cosmetic surgery or a personality transplant you are what you are.

Those who love you will love you for what you are and you just need to join you own fan club and celebrate all that is unique, wonderful and special about you.

If you need to know what is special about you just ask your loved ones to make a list of 5 things they love about you and that will be a good start to feeling good about yourself.

How I can help you?

If you want to do some work with me, then please get in touch and let’s start your journey of getting to know you and building your confidence.